AUTHOR ARCHIVES

Erich Wagner

Erich Wagner is a staff correspondent covering pay, benefits and other federal workforce issues. He joined Government Executive in the spring of 2017 after extensive experience writing about state and local issues in Maryland and Virginia, most recently as editor-in-chief of the Alexandria Times. He holds a bachelor's degree in journalism from the University of Maryland.

November 7, 2018
The Defense Department announced Tuesday that military retirees and survivors will receive an increase in their pay and annuities in 2019. Beginning Jan. 1, most military retirees, enrollees in the Survivor Benefit Plan and survivors of service members who died on active or inactive duty, will receive a 2.8 percent...

November 5, 2018
When the Office of Personnel Management announced the results of its annual governmentwide survey of federal employees last month, acting OPM Director Margaret Weichert was quick to cite workers’ lack of satisfaction with how pay raises are tied to performance. “Unfortunately, our people also continue to feel that the federal...

November 2, 2018
A group of 16 Democratic senators on Thursday expressed “serious concerns” with how some federal agencies have appeared to move forward with implementation of provisions of a series of controversial workforce executive orders, despite a court order barring them from doing so. In August, U.S. District Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson...

November 1, 2018
A union representing employees at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau on Monday filed a mass grievance against the agency over its handling of a political appointee’s racist blog posts, calling for his removal. Eric Blankenstein, a CFPB policy director, had been appointed by the Trump administration to oversee, among other...

November 1, 2018
Nearly all of the funds in the federal government’s 401(k)-style retirement savings program tumbled last month, mirroring a month of volatility in the financial markets. The Thrift Savings Plan’s G Fund, which is made up of government securities, was the only portfolio in the black in October, gaining 0.26 percent....

October 31, 2018
Although the recently released results of the Office of Personnel Management’s annual Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey suggested that federal workers still are not satisfied with how raises and promotions are doled out across government, they appear to be growing more satisfied with their own salaries. The percentage of respondents who...

October 31, 2018
FROM NEXTGOV
Two federal departments that controversially made unilateral cuts to their telework programs were among the worst performers in this year’s survey of federal employees’ happiness and engagement, according to a Government Executive analysis. In the Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey, released last week by the Office of Personnel Management, the Agriculture...

October 30, 2018
Two federal departments that controversially made unilateral cuts to their telework programs were among the worst performers in this year’s survey of federal employees’ happiness and engagement, according to a Government Executive analysis. In the Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey, released last week by the Office of Personnel Management, the Agriculture...

October 30, 2018
Happiness among federal employees stagnated in 2018, according to an annual survey of the government’s workforce, and although a number of agencies posted gains in worker satisfaction, several large agencies saw steep declines. The Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey, released by the Office of Personnel Management last week, found that the...

October 26, 2018
Although officials at the Office of Personnel Management applauded slight growth in employee engagement metrics in the results of the annual Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey released Thursday, there is increasing worry over a long-running trend of declining participation in the questionnaire. Across government, the employee engagement increased by 1 point...